I’ve loved nature ever since I spent five weeks in New Zealand in 2007, exploring the incredible islands – north and south, which hold unspoiled treasures for tourists.
In the Northern Island, for example, using a regular shovel, I dug a natural Jacuzzi at midnight at _Hot Water Beach. _The area is volcanic, so boiling water from the ground mixes with the waves coming in from the tide to form the ideal hot tub for late night stargazing. I climbed a volcano, rafted in raging rivers, abseiled into caves full of glowing worms, skydived, trekked, and flew a Red-Bull aerobatic airplane.
But, the best part of the experience was meeting a contact, which later became a friend, then a partner angel investor in a start-up, which made us both a nice chunk.
It was his network, which brought us the deal. You see, when you understand that building relationships is vital to becoming wealthy, your whole demeanor changes. I wouldn’t have had access to that deal without his affiliation to the key people. Build bridges every day, because with luck, you’ll be able to connect important dots.
Warren Buffett would probably be worth half of what he is today, without an introduction made by a mutual friend, which brought Charlie Munger into his life.
Many of the world’s biggest tech companies have their origin in college classmates teaming up to change the world.
Networking is one of the 21st century’s essential tools, and you must develop a personality, which allows you to meet people that can be valuable to you. To do this, you must be able to add value yourself.
Some of the best bonds I’ve formed over the years came out of pure personal initiative. Don’t be intimidated of opening up because others are only attracted to those they feel can advance their lives in some respect. Giving is the secret to forming a lost-lasting relationship.
By striking up a conversation in New Zealand and inviting this European businessman to join my group for dinner, I ended up making a seed investment with the new contact I’d met there. By approaching a couple of young men with a laptop in Aspen, while skiing in 2013, offering to buy them a beer in exchange for learning what they were talking about when I overheard them say, “digital gold, internet money,” I learned about Bitcoin at $19.
During the five years that have passed since then, every coin, which then sold for $19, reached a high of over $19,000. Of course, I haven’t held all the way through, not even close, but I’ve made several round-trips to enjoy the boom.
Bitcoin’s rally has been an unbelievable one. It is so unique that I’m pretty confident in saying that it might take 10-20 years to see any other asset class explode similarly.
It is certainly true that the definition of luck is Preparation Meeting Opportunity. Many are too full of themselves to admit it, but luck is a part of life.
The rise in interest for cryptocurrencies brought with it, due to its unregulated nature, many scammers.
Two people I know personally funded ICOs, which have gone to zero, and I’ve spoken to investors, who saw their investment tokens disappear, along with the people behind the project.
This, along with the accusations from Buffett, Munger, Jamie Dimon, and others, regarding the technology, which they clearly oppose, coupled with this year’s 70% smash in the price of the major projects, has shaken out the eternal bulls, who believed that they joined a movement, rather than an investment opportunity.
Like with gold, the Bitcoin support camp is very emotional.
You don’t see hundreds of Disney Stock YouTube channels, talking about Mickey Mouse all day, but you do see thousands of bloggers dishing out crypto content.
Just like the gold bugs, they can’t understand how anybody could have a negative opinion of their sweetheart, not realizing that this is actually beneficial for them to keep the price low and the opportunity to trade alive and well.
The blowback this year has caused mom and pop investors to shy away from cryptocurrencies for the moment, but it is attracting the mammoths, the whales, the heavy guns of the global financial industry, and they are about to send Bitcoin to new all-time highs.
Here’s the biggest event, going forward, which will utterly change this industry – the introduction of custodian services; an event so monumental that it only compares with the line you see outside stores on Black Friday, right before the doors open in the morning.
Take a snapshot of the interior of the store, five minutes before the doors open wide in the morning, and you’ll see an empty floor, but right outside the door, eagerly standing, are thousands of shoppers.
In the financial world, institutional investors are barred from owning assets on behalf of their clients, which is why they must use a custodian service. We are witnessing the first reputable global players preparing to offer this product, so that funds and asset managers could finally place their orders. It rarely happens that individual investors get a chance to position ahead of the whales, so I’m banking on this right now.
The birth of the custodian services will be hand in hand with the coming ETFs, which will undoubtedly be approved at some point by March of 2019, as I see it.
My new price target for Bitcoin is $38,000. I am LONG!
Best Regards,
Lior Gantz
President, WealthResearchGroup.com